All the Nets needed to do was make an inbounds pass.
Instead, they threw away the game.
Deron Williams’ pass intended for Joe Johnson was picked off with 10.6 seconds by Patrick Patterson, who then drained the game-winning jumper with 6.0 seconds remaining to lift the Raptors to a dramatic 104-103 win in front of 15,790 inside Barclays Center Monday night, stealing what looked like a win away from the Nets.
“It’s tough,” said Williams after finishing with nine points and 11 assists. “It definitely hurts. The bad thing about it is we have three days to sit and think about it, so it’s even worse.
“There’s nothing I can do about it now … can’t take it back. Wish I could. That’s not my first time turning the ball over to lose the game, and it won’t be the last. I’ve just got to respond on Friday [against Oklahoma City].”
The loss saw the Nets (20-23) fall 2 ¹/₂ games behind the Raptors (23-21) for first place in the Atlantic Division, and snapped a five-game winning streak as Toronto beat the Nets for the second time this month — and remain the only team to have beaten Brooklyn in 2014. The loss also spoiled a brilliant performance from Paul Pierce, who finished with a season-high 33 points.
The deciding play came after Raptors guard John Salmons drove to the rim and laid the ball in with 12 seconds left to cut the Nets’ lead to 103-102. Brooklyn then burned its final timeout in order to set up an inbounds play.
“Get a timeout and get the guys in that we believe would make the free throws, and play the game out from there,” Nets coach Jason Kidd said in explaining the use of his final timeout there.
Kidd used that timeout to insert Williams and Johnson into the game for Shaun Livingston and Andrei Kirilenko, who had been in for defensive purposes, and had Williams inbound the ball. But when no options came open for him to throw the ball in — and with referee Violet Palmer counting down toward a five-second call — Williams tried to throw a pass to a cutting Johnson in the backcourt.
But Patterson — making a play Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, in the arena watching with many of his teammates, would have been proud of — leapt in front of Johnson and intercepted the ball. Then, after giving the ball to point guard Kyle Lowry, took Lowry’s return pass and after getting Williams to go by him with a pump-fake, calmly knocked down the open 12-foot jumper to give Toronto the lead.
“You know they have a million and one plays they could come up with, but we guessed right and Patrick looked like Richard Sherman out there with that steal,” Lowry said.
“I knew we were just going to go when we got the steal because they were off-balance. … I had a couple guys [open], but I just went with Pat, and he made it.”
The Nets, with no timeouts remaining, put the ball in Pierce’s hands to try and answer, having him bring the ball the length of the floor. But Pierce’s long, contested 3-pointer came up short, and the Nets trudged off their home floor with a crushing defeat.
“At the end, you have to improvise,” said Pierce, who went 7-for-10 from 3-point range a night after being celebrated in his first game back in Boston following last summer’s trade. “We didn’t have a play. When you’re going up full court with six seconds to go, things are moving so fast, the thought is you want to either find somebody or get the open shot. Once I got it past half court, there wasn’t any time to make the pass, so I took the shot.”
Patterson may have hit the game-winning shot, but Lowry was the difference for Toronto, finishing with 31 points, five rebounds and seven assists while Jonas Valanciunas finished with 20 points and 13 rebounds for the Raptors, who were playing without injured leading scorer DeMar DeRozan.
The late-game miscue also spoiled a comeback for the Nets, who rallied from down nine in the fourth quarter to take a 100-96 lead after back-to-back 3-pointers from Pierce, and didn’t trail again until Patterson’s shot dropped through the net.
Now the Nets have three days off before a brutal back-to-back set this weekend against the NBA’s top two teams in the NBA — at home against Oklahoma City Friday before going to Indiana Saturday.
“It’s good to have the break, but not to sit there and think about turning the ball over to lose a game for two days,” Williams said. “That’s not going to be fun for me.”